Deep Learning and Digital Stewardship: Discovery and Discernment in Christian Higher Education

1. Deep Learning and Digital Stewardship: Discovery and Discernment in Christian Higher Education Van Weigel vweigel@eastern.edu

2. Three Questions Relating to Digital Stewardship • Are we using technology in a way that enhances the experience of learning for our students? • Are we using technology in a manner that makes good use of faculty time and energy? • What sorts of e-learning technologies can be sustained in a long-run environment of fiscal austerity?

3. These Questions Are a Subset of Other Questions Facing Christian Higher Education • What is the proper mix between Internet-based and classroom-based instruction? • Will e-learning enhance or detract from the integration of faith and learning on Christian campuses? • Is distance education an effective alternative to face-to-face classroom interaction? • Can Christian perspectives on e-learning offer important new contributions to the field?

6. The First Stewardship Question: Does Technology Really Enhance the Experience of Learning?

7. Current Realms of Transformation • Student Services (e.g., online course registration) • E-mail and PowerPoint as ubiquitous e-learning technologies • Enhanced Communication? • Enhanced Learning or Better Lectures? • The transformation of the Internet into a “research library” • Google (1998) • Is the Internet a Border’s SuperStore (10%) or one-half of a Mall Bookstore (1%)? (Shapiro and Varian, Information Rules, 1999) • Upside: Digital journals and full-text databases • Downside: Information Overload

8. The Loading Dock Approach • The Loading Dock Model • Information is divided up into parcels and arranged neatly on pallets • The focus is on loading the cargo in the most efficient way possible (i.e., lectures) • Preoccupation with the logistics of weight distribution and pallet sequencing—not on how the cargo will be ultimately used • The loaded cargo is certified through quizzes and exams and students are presented with an official bill of lading (i.e., grade transcript) • To what extent are current CMS models and approaches to “web-enhancement” captive to this approach (e.g., posting the syllabus)?

9. Consequences of the Loading Dock Approach • Little opportunity to develop problem-solving skills beyond trivial “textbook” problems • Focus on getting the answer right instead of how one arrived at the answer • Skills and knowledge acquired in one domain are rarely applied to other knowledge domains—inhibiting the development of metacognitive skills • Students become passive (and often bored) observers of “education” instead of active participants in the learning experience • Learning is construed as a process of acquiring and certifying knowledge, instead of a process involving discovery and discernment

10. The Biology of Memory • Working and long-term memory involve separate pathways in the brain • Working memory is very limited in capacity (e.g. remembering names) • New ideas come about by manipulating information stored in working memory to create new relationships that are stored in long-term memory (i.e., thinking) • Learning involves the selection of synaptic pathways that are useful to us.

11. Four Building Blocks Knowledge Management Cognitive Apprenticeship The Knowledge Room Work Group Paradigm

12. Cognitive Apprenticeship • Thinking is an Art • Focus on Helping Students to be Knowledge Creators and Integrators • Practice in the Presence of More Skilled Persons • The Importance of Learning from Peers (or Communities of Practice)

13. Communities of Practice as a Key Stewardship Concept Preparing students for the 21st century workplace through building knowledge objects and gaining experience in “peer assists”

14. Methods of Cognitive Apprenticeship

15. Five Knowledge Rooms (www.knowledgeroom.com) The Research Center The Debate Hall The Conference Center The Portfolio Gallery The Skill Workplace

16. Two SubsidiaryStewardship Concerns: The CMS as a Pedagogical Straitjacket The Problem of Commoditization

17. Commodization as a Stewardship Issue • The broadband virtual classroom and the likely fate of narrow-band distance learning • “Like it or not, in the online environment, certain types of courses and programs become relative commodities. . . . Institutions in a particular geographic area that previously attracted local students on the strength of a given program or curriculum now face direct competition for that student from an institution that may be 3,000 or more miles away.”

18. Is the CMS a Pedagogical Straitjacket? • The problem of lock-in • The predisposition to understanding learning as following a road map v. discovery-based learning (i.e., behaviorism v. constructivism) • The bias in favor of superficial assessment techniques (e.g., multiple choice v. solution narratives) • The inability of current CMS models to facilitate robust student-to-student collaboration on “ill-defined” questions.

19. E-Learning Technologies Should Provide Students With An “Out of the Course” Experience • Learning as an interdisciplinary endeavor that spans several courses (v. segmented knowledge) • E-Portfolios as a necessary pedagogical tool • The assessment services of “community educators”

20. The Second Stewardship Question: Are we using technology in a manner that makes good use of faculty time and energy?

21. The Time Factor • Why should educators adopt a method of teaching that requires considerably higher time expenditures (estimates range from 20% to 250% more time expenditures)? • Two Key Variables • Class Size • Support Structures

23. The Downside of Class Participation • A Class of 30 Students • A 50 minute lecture • 2 ½ minute commentary/response by each student • 1/3 of the students ask a question • The professor has 2 ½ minutes to respond • The Result? 50 minutes to 2 ½ hours

24. A Solution? • Information technology as a tool for interactivity and connection (v. trading documents) • Information technology as a vehicle for profound decentralization (p2p v. client-server)

27. “Go 2EDSA, Wear blck”

28. The Use of IM Among College Students The Pew Internet and American Life Project report, “The Internet Goes to College” (October 15, 2002), notes that that “College Internet users are twice as likely to use instant messaging on any given day compared to the average Internet user. On a typical day, 26% of college students use IM.” By contrast, only “12% of other Internet users are using IM on an average day.” The experience of connection has to be a central ingredient here—an experience more immediate and satisfying than trading e-mails or expressing opinions on a discussion board.

29. Teach to Learn Empowering Students to be Educators • Organization • Articulation • Reflection • Re-organization It has been said that we retain 10% of what we read, 50% of what we see and hear, and 95% of what we teach.

30. Four Key Propositions of the Teach-To-Learn Model • Discovery and discernment are critical learning activities. • Collaborative learning flourishes on problem-based pedagogies that focus on studied ambiguity and degrees of difficulty—not divisions of labor. • Every presentation/lecture should have at least one informed respondent. • The ability to distinguish among levels of competency (through rubric-based assessment) is a principal learning outcome.

31. What the Groove Workspace has delivered . . . defines what Microsoft and Apple will be lucky to achieve by 2006. InfoWorld, February 14, 2003 www.groove.net Ray Ozzie

32. Core Characteristics • Profound decentralization with lightweight setup (modified p2p application) • A robust security structure (192-bit security with always on encryption) • Ability to co-edit documents, do web tours, and share PowerPoint presentations with no instructor bias • Online awareness • Microsoft Visual Studio as the IDE (Groove 2.5) • Integration with Microsoft’s SharePoint Server (Groove 2.5) • Cost ($25 per student; relay server is free)

33. A Groove Liability: the computer center . . . or a strength? The Wireless Tablet PC with Next Generation Voice Recognition?

44. The Third Stewardship Question: What sorts of e-learning technologies can be sustained in a long run environment of fiscal austerity?